Family Decline: A Political Response and a Religious Response

PAUL C. VITZ

Paul Vitz, in this concluding chapter, outlines both a political and a religious response to the crisis of the family. Vitz begins by reviewing evidence from the social sciences of the tragic social and economic costs which large numbers of single-parent and divorced families have wrought, concluding that the state's self-interest should push it to support strong traditional families.

Paul Vitz

Let us reflect on the theoretical analyses and research-findings bearing
on the contemporary American family, contained in this volume. It is clear that
the present situation, involving large numbers of single-parent and divorced families,
presents serious social and economic costs. The consequences to society of such
families include:

dramatic
increases in the number of illegitimate children, large numbers of whom are, with
their mother, on social welfare.

large
increases in psychiatric problems, both among children and single parents.

large
increases in physical health problems of many kinds.

much
higher risks of serious child-abuse, including death.

large
rises in educational pathologies (e.g., learning difficulties, high drop-out rates)
and an increase in depression and in negative attitudes about the self and others,
both of which undermine the capacity of children to learn and to become successful
contributors to the modern economy.

a
much higher likelihood of using drugs, with the associated social costs.

a
very large proportion of serious criminal behavior.

As a consequence,
a heavy economic and social burden is beginning to fall on the state. And this
burden can only grow, at least in the next few decades, because divorce, the rise
in illegitimacy, and the large numbers of unmarried couples living together all
predict a continuation, and probably a growth, in childhood pathology and youthful
criminality with its related ills.

It seems reasonable, therefore, that the
state, to the extent that its policies are rational, should attempt to halt, and
if possible reverse, these social trends. Just as recent laws and unbridled social
changes have promoted these pathologies, new laws and new social policies can,
it is to be hoped, mitigate these harmful effects. After all, the state's self-interest
should push it to support strong traditional families.

There are, of course,
historical reasons to be pessimistic about reversing the factors responsible for
demographic and social decline. But there is an important new element this time,
namely our increased understanding of the problem and its causes. The kind of
theory and research summarized and discussed in this book is historically new.
In a sense, these positions give a genuine understanding of a major social disease.
As with biological diseases which were first conquered through medical science
beginning two hundred years ago, so perhaps we can use this new social science
to substantially improve our social health. Perhaps with this new understanding
we can forge the will to change society, and to implement new policy.

No country,
so far as I know, has penalized divorce; on the whole, in the past few decades,
divorce has been getting easier and easier: faster, cheaper, and increasingly
socially acceptable. In the United States, as mentioned above, we have "no-fault"
divorce, in which either member of the couple can simply decide to divorce, for
any reason, at any time. (It is ironic that this legal innovation was strongly
supported by feminists, who thought it would liberate women; instead, in the U.S.,
it has impoverished and embittered millions of women and children.) Likewise,
I don't believe any state has tied retirement and health benefits to the number
of children a person has.

What I propose, then, is a "preferential option for
the family In the United States, this might mean something like the following:

laws
making divorce when children are involved harder and slower to get.

possibly,
a divorce "tax" to be paid by couples who have children to help defray the social
costs which divorce, on average, forces society to pay. The tax would be paid
by the person seeking the divorce, and might be 1% of gross income for each child
involved, for each year of the divorce until the child is 18. To take an analogy:
in the past, businesses were often allowed to pollute the physical and biological
environment. As the costs of this pollution became clear and burdensome, laws
were introduced to restrict such practices, and to make businesses pay for some
of these costs, through special taxes. Divorce, where children are involved, is
a kind of social "pollution," and those who inflict it on others should be prepared
to pay the costs.

We
need to markedly reduce our society's widespread illegitimacy. This is a very
difficult issue, but perhaps one of the best deterrents, at least for educated
people, is for the negative effects of deliberately raising children with only
one parent to be more widely publicized. It's time that we saw the deliberate
raising of a child without a father (for example) as a form of self-indulgence,
with the child being treated more like a pet than a human being.

Taxes
and other social costs which today fall more heavily on those who are married
and have children, must be reduced. For example, a large tax credit for the married
who have children should be seen as a worthwhile investment for the society. Nothing
will encourage marriage more rapidly than to make it much more financially attractive.
The state must begin to see healthy children as its most important social investment.
For example, see Carlson (1996) and (1998).

Economic
security in old age e.g., social security payments should be linked
to the number of a person's children. This controversial suggestion by the European
demographer van de Kaa (1987) surely goes to the heart of the present problem.
After all, why should those without children have their retirement paid for by
other people's children?

A
special "marriage encouragement" policy, proposed by the Family Research Report
(Sept./Oct, 1994, 1-2) has merit. Specifically, it was proposed that married couples
would get a 1% per year tax reduction for each year that they stayed married;
married couples with children, who remained with maintained guardianship
of their children would get another 1% tax reduction per child. (Children
over 18 would cease to qualify.)

Change
and adapt laws and zoning ordinances so as to allow much more home labor, especially
the kind using modern computer and communication technology. This point has been
developed along with a tax credit by Carlson (1996).

Get
rid of the present tax penalty paid by married couples as compared to those co-habiting
and with the unmarried. Carlson and Blankenhorn (1997) have cogently argued that
the best way to do this is by using income splitting.

There
are, of course, other ways in which a preferential option for the family could
be expressed in the United States, and other countries as well. The above should
be seen as constituting suggestions. One of the most important centers for policy
and political support for the family is the Howard Center for Family, Religion
and Society, 934 N. Main Street, Rockford, IL 61103/(815) 964-5819. And an excellent
discussion of how the state might help the European family has been provided by
Donati (1993).

Part
2: A religious response

The implicit understanding of a family
in much of the prior research and discussion has been: a child (or children) living
with its (their) two biological parents. A more useful definition of the family
would speak in terms of children living with two biological parents who have a
good marriage and a strong religious faith (or other world view). Let us briefly
look at the evidence for this understanding of a family. THE FAMILY AND RELIGION:
EVIDENCE FROM SOCIAL SCIENCE Evidence that a good marriage is an important and
positive contribution to family life, and that a bad marriage is the reverse has
already been presented. But the positive contribution of religion to the well-being
of family members and society is also documented but is not well known. This research
has been reviewed by David B. Larson (e.g., Larson, Larson and Gartner, 1990).
See also Gartner, Larson and Allen, 1991; and Payne, Bergin, Bielema and Jenkins,
1991. I will present much of this important research here. A major point to keep
in mind about the research literature on religion and health is that when religion
is defined by behavioral commitment (e.g., church attendance) and the other variable
is also behavioral (e.g., drug use) the research reliably shows a very positive
picture of religion. However, when religious attitudes and paper and pencil tests
are correlated, the picture is much more ambiguous, and sometimes negative. In
short, beware of studies or polls that measure "religion only by asking for a
person `s "religious preference" or "attitude toward religion.

Physical
health

Levin and Vanderpool (1987), in a systematic review (a meta-analysis)
of the literature reported: Twenty-two out of 27 studies found the frequency
of religious attendance to be significantly associated with health" (p. 590).
Even the most tenuous sort of religious association had some positive impact on
physical health.

This conclusion is consistent with past reviews: Argyle &
Beit-Halahmi, 1975; Larson, 1985; and with other studies: Jenkins, 1976; Gartner,
et al., 1991. All of the studies that Larson (1985) and Levin and Vanderpool (1987)
reviewed confirmed that the religiously committed lived longer than those without
such commitment; this effect was particularly strong in males. The index of religious
commitment in most of these studies was frequency of church attendance.

An
important study by Straus and Kantor (1987) analyzed 18 variables predicting child
abuse rates. Parents with low religious service attendance" were over 100% more
likely to abuse their children than those with high church attendance. It is also
worth noting that low marital satisfaction was associated with high child abuse
rates (and vice versa).

Mental
health

The first articles reviewing religion and mental health,
Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi (1975), Moberg (1965), Stark (1971), reported that the
elderly who are religiously active have greater well-being and experience lower
frequencies of psychiatric disorder. A current review (Gartner et al., 1991) found
six studies that investigated a wide variety of populations, two of which were
elderly (Moberg, 1965; Rogalski & Paisey, 1987). Each of the six studies reported
a positive relationship between religious commitment and well-being. It was unclear
whether church attendance increased well-being for the elderly, or if it was simply
an index of their overall level of functioning; thus, attending church could be
a sign of good health and ability to function.

Williams, et al. (l99l) report
findings that led them to conclude that religion significantly reduces the stress
of life: as religious attendance increased, adverse consequences of stress decreased.

In addition, two large-scale epidemiological studies have examined the overall
rate of psychological distress in the general population. Both found that the
religiously committed were less disturbed than the religiously uncommitted (Lindenthal
et al., 1970; Stark, 1971). Finally, Poloma and Pendleton (1991) found that religious
experience during prayer was a significant predictor of general well-being.

Six
studies, which assessed religious status and psychological status at more than
one point in time, demonstrated improvement in psychological functioning following
religious participation. For example, lower rates of rehospitalization were noted
in schizophrenics who attended church (Chu & Klein, 1985) or were given supportive
aftercare by religious housewives and ministers (Katkin et al, 1975). Also, participation
in religious worship resulted in significant reductions in diverse psychiatric
symptoms (Finney & Malony, 1985; Griffith et al, 1986, Morris, 1982).

Suicide

Religious commitment reduces the likelihood of suicide. One large-scale
study (Comstock & Partridge, 1972) found that those who did not attend church
were four times more prone to suicide than were frequent church attendees.

Furthermore, a decline in church attendance has
been found to predict suicide rates nationwide (Martin, 1984; Stack, 1983a; Stark
et al., 1983). This single factor predicted suicide rates more effectively than
factors such as unemployment (Stack, 1983a). Across nations, differences in "religiousness"
have been found to predict suicide rates (Breault & Barkey, 1982; Stack, 1983b).

Substance
use

In their 1976 review of the literature, Gorsuch and Butler
found 20 studies that examined the relationship between religion and drug use.
They found that religious people very reliably do not use illicit drugs. More
recent studies have provided similar results: 11 of the 12 studies reviewed by
Gartner, et al. (1991) demonstrated that people with a religious commitment had
far lower rates of drug use. Gartner, et al. (1991) also found that 6 out of 7
studies showed that abusive use of alcohol was more common in the less religious.

Those who attended church frequently were also found to have the lowest rate
of delinquency in 5 of the 6 studies Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi (1975) reviewed.
It is important to note that it is religious behavior, not merely religious attitudes,
that differentiated non-delinquents from delinquents.

Divorce
and marital satisfaction

Religious people may simply be remaining
in unhappy marriages out of obedience to religious proscriptions against divorce.
Although this is unquestionably true in some individual cases, as a group the
religiously committed generally defined by church attendance report
higher levels of marital satisfaction (Larson, 1985). For example, one study found
that church attendance predicted marital satisfaction better than any of the other
eight variables included in a multi-variate regression model (Glenn & Weaver,
1978). Men and women from enduring marriages rank religion as one of the most
important prescriptions for a happy marriage (Sporawski & Houghston, 1978).

Religion
and family size

One of the central concerns, perhaps the central
concern, of many commentators about the future of the West has been the arrival
of very low birthrates, rates that are far below replacement, at least in most
of the developed countries, especially Western Europe. In the United States, at
present, the birthrate is 2.1 children per woman, and is about at replacement.
But even here, the situation is disturbing. For example, the birthrate in the
U.S. was below replacement from approximately 1970 to 1990 (Donovan, 1990). It
has blipped up almost to replacement level in the past few years, primarily as
a minor response to the large baby-boom generation, and as a result of the large
families of many recent immigrants. And of course, as already mentioned, large
numbers of the U.S. births are to single mothers with all the problems
this entails. In terms of planned births by married couples, the U.S. is already
a one-child society (Donovan, 1990). The only reason that the total U.S. population
has been growing in recent years has been through immigration, not the birthrate.
Immigration, of course, creates all kinds of other problems. In much of Western
Europe, the birthrate has been substantially below replacement for many years
and is beginning to approach crisis levels.

In the United States I have long
been attending to where large families can be found. I have a personal interest
in this, along with my wife, since we have six children. My basic observation
is simple: wherever we have noticed large families, especially groups of them,
we have discovered that these families are seriously religious. Some examples
are the Orthodox and especially the Hasidic Jewish communities in the New York
City area (see Hoffman, 1990a, 1990b). These religious communities are growing
very rapidly, and I have been informed that the median family size is roughly
eight children! A recent Jewish commentator (Feder, 1993) has noted that within
the near future, the American Jewish community will be dramatically dominated
by these ultra-conservative and religiously committed groups. A similar phenomenon
has been reported in Israel by Hartman (1984). Another group in the United States
with large families is the Mormons. For example, see the research of Johnson (1982);
Heaton and Calkins (1983); Smith (1985); Toney, et al., (1985). My own personal
observation in recent years has been that the Mormon birthrate is well above the
American national average. The Amish are another example of a religious community
with a high birthrate (see Ericksen and Klein, 1981; Bishop, 1993). My experience
with Catholic families over the last dozen or so years has very reliably led me
to conclude that if a Catholic family has more than about four young children,
it is almost certain to be a seriously religious family.

For general evidence
that religious commitment is a factor in U.S. fertility, see Mosher et al. (1986);
see Oakley (1986) for evidence that the non-religious are more likely to be childless.
For a relevant world-wide analysis see Fu and Heaton (1995).

A related finding
is that the seriously religious are much less likely to get divorced. In a Canadian
study, Balakrishnan et al. (1987) found that couples that attended church once
a week had an 18% chance of being divorced, while those less religious had a 47%
likelihood. Couples who share a religious faith are also less likely to get divorced
than those of no faith. (Moneker and Rankin, 1993). A study in Holland found that
young people with devout parents are much more likely to get married without cohabitation
or after brief cohabitation; they were also less likely to cohabit (Liefbroer
and Gierveld, 1993).

Finally, at a conference on the topic of "strong families,"
the thirteen participating researchers compared notes. They agreed that "a religious
or spiritual orientation" was a major characteristic of strong families in all
studies with which they were familiar. (Kryson, Moore and Zill, 1990.)

In summary,
research has shown that religious commitment as measured by religious attendance
or participation appears to promote both physical and mental health. Religion
helps people live longer and protects against the occurrence of serious misuse
of drugs and alcohol. Religious participation also predicts lower rates of child
abuse, suicide and delinquency. It protects families from divorce and thus also
protects families from fragmentation. Religious participation mitigates against
psychological distress and promotes a personal sense of well-being. And finally,
religious commitment is a major factor in high that is, above replacement
fertility.

In short, another way of stating the family crisis is to
say that at heart it is a religious crisis. This conclusion is far from novel,
as the same general view was brilliantly presented years ago by the Harvard sociologist
Sorokin (e.g., 1947, 1956, 1957).

The
case for a religious response

I will argue that the secular state
is intrinsically incapable of reversing the present, well-documented, pathological
family and social trends. Instead, I believe that the primary initiative lies
with religion, and unless such initiative is taken, the situation can only continue
to deteriorate.

Historically, there has been a long struggle in the West between
church and state. In the last hundred years of this struggle, the state now triumphs
in this conflict with routine frequency. The secular state and its associated
secular worldview are now institutionalized throughout the West, and, however
institutionalized and indeed fossilized, secularism has become the established
social philosophy. Correspondingly, the religious life in most European and in
many other Western countries has been driven to the periphery of society. Even
in the U.S., religion has been driven out of the public political spheres (e.g.
Neuhaus, 1984.)

The triumph of modern anti-religious secularism, as expressed
in the modern state, raises serious obstacles, however, to the previously suggested
policy of supporting the family. After all, the ideology that governs the modern
state and those who administer it is hostile to the traditional family, and, of
course, to religion. Furthermore, the growth of family pathology feeds the growth
of state-supported social programs that attempt to alleviate family problems.
In the process, such state programs typically make the problem worse and continue
to undermine the family. Nevertheless, the state itself grows in power. As with
all organizations, this growth in power is self-reinforcing. (See Carlson, 1997.)

But when this socially destructive logic unfolds and becomes understood, there
may be a chance for a positive movement actually supporting the family and religion,
as well. If this is not possible, I suspect that deep hostility to the very notion
of the modern secular state will continue to grow at least among the seriously
religious population, especially those still having children. In the U.S., this
is already shown by the recent political strength of the so-called "religious
right."

In any case, I am quite convinced that the previously described single-parent,
divorced, broken or non-traditional family can best be understood as the secular
family: as the logical and necessary outcome of secularization. At its limit,
the government itself, through its programs, becomes the family. The goal of utopian
political theory is thus reached in an unanticipated manner. Today each single
parent, in a sense, marries the government. In contrast, the strong family is
best understood as the religious family. My reasoning is as follows. Secularism
is about the absence of God and of higher meaning. Secularism is the philosophy
of the isolated individual, living in a world without transcendent meaning; secularism
is about the consumer mentality and a life devoted to hedonist and material pleasures
for the individual.

In short, as secularism has expanded and become more extreme,
it has created the "meaning" crisis, and with it the family crisis. As long as
the dominant worldview is modern secularism, there is little reason for any individual
to choose even the restraints of marriage, much less the obligations and duties
of parenthood. Thus, it is likely that the marriage and birth rates will continue
to decline in the U.S. and in much of the West. It makes rational sense, within
such a secular framework, to concentrate on self-fulfillment, and to forget about
the welfare of society. It makes secular sense to assume that the state will take
care of you, and of those you fail to take care of. It makes sense to assume that
other people's children will pay the taxes to care for you in your old age. And
if there is a need for competent workers, or even for soldiers, it makes sense,
from the perspective of the secular individual, to assume that other people's
children will do the hard and dangerous work of the culture.

But the simple
fact is that the state needs children just as much as any couple in a village
in India needs them to care for them in their old age. `The only difference is
that it takes longer for people in the modern state to become aware of this logic.
But again, the problem is that from the point of view of the individual secular
citizen, it is worth the gamble to not have children, because it is certain that
your children will cost you much in time, money and anxiety. And it is possible
that the state will be able to pay for your old age.

What is needed is a new
and creative tension between church and state a tension where each party
is strong enough to prevent the problems caused by the dominance of the other.
Because both church and state make important positive contributions to society,
both have a vested interest in such a healthy competition. Otherwise, as shown
by the family crisis, the very weakness of the church undermines the strength
of the state.

To return to the general situation, our problem was first and
most powerfully stated in the West by Nietzsche: "If God is dead, anything is
permitted." Unfortunately, such logic leads inevitably to post-modern nihilistic
self-indulgence. In the process, it leads as well to the rejection of marriage
and children, both of which require self-sacrifice rather than self-empowerment;
both require money, time, and effort. What is more religious families know
this well children `justify" themselves in large part today by their transcendent
meaning, by their importance in a religious framework. Children are gifts from
God. Sacrificial love, perhaps best shown to children, brings you into a transcendent
form of existence that leaves nihilist materialism in the meaningless dust.

However,
the return of religion to Western culture does not depend upon the state. It depends
upon religion itself. Should religion return, we can also assume that it will
bring with it strengthened families, more children, and cultural survival. If
religion returns, it may, of course, take many different forms, of which Christianity
is only one. In the United States, we have many competing religions, the most
lively today being Fundamentalist Protestantism, Mormonism, Orthodox and Hasidic
Judaism, and Islam, especially black Islam.

Whether a widespread religious
revival will occur is impossible to say. Meanwhile, we live in a post-modern sunset:
it provides a strange afterglow within which we have begun to understand that
if God is dead, our families are dead our society is dead. In short, if,
for America, God is dead, then America is dead.

Acknowledgement

Vitz,
Paul C. A Preferential Option for the Family: A Political Response and a Religious
Response In Defending the Family: A Sourcebook, 268-275. Steubenville,
OH: The Catholic Social Science Press, 1999.

(ISBN: 1-888462-00-0). Order from
Franciscan University Press, University Boulevard, Steubenville, Ohio 43952/(800)
783-6357. Reprinted with permission of The Society of Catholic Social Scientists,
Inc.